How a Frenchman stole two billion dollars’ worth of art

This was the perfect Sunday morning read.

This is what I love about HN at the weekend, it sort of slows down, there is less moving through it. Then you get these brilliant long reads, things that wouldn't land on the homepage during the week, perfect for coffee and sitting in the garden in the summer sunshine.

In my local town, a town it seems almost nobody in North America has heard of, is a small art museum containing among the top collections of European and oil paintings in North America. It was awesome to take an art history class in college and then go to the local museum and many of those paintings from the class textbooks are right there in person.

That museum has staff standing there watching to ensure patrons do not get too close to the art. Because the staff are continuously and actively watching the art work in person it would seem challenging to steal anything from there.

stealing art is pointless, with high risk and no reward. there is little or no resell value unless you can find a collector who will pay you for the piece. totally illiquid market too.

> All this is recounted, thrillingly, in “The Art Thief” (Knopf), by the journalist Michael Finkel. It is his third book, and also the third one to search for meaning—moral, aesthetic, existential—in criminal acts. This is an interest he comes by honestly, or, more precisely, dishonestly. In 2002, Finkel, who was then a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine, plummeted from grace when the protagonist of an article he wrote, about allegations of child slavery on West African cocoa plantations, turned out to be a composite character. The Times fired him and soon afterward published a lengthy correction, which took his transgressions from private to public and took a sledgehammer to his reputation.

So a sensational story about a unique person being told by someone who was caught lying about a sensational story about a unique person?